Adventures in Competitive Gymnastics

This summer has been so much fun!  We have gone to the beach, gone to the Mountains, had fun with cousins, had more fun with cousins, and embarked on this new thing called competitive gymnastics!

Last April CB was asked to join the gymnastics team at the gym where she has been taking classes for the last two years.  Her exact words were, "I have waited my whole life for this."  She was 6.  Now, six years IS a long time to wait.  The big question was now, whether we were going to embark on this journey and let her do it.  

Being on team means...weekend meets, traveling, several hours of week day practices, money, a lot of money.  And she is young.  She just turned 7 last month.  Did we really want to start this now.  I would also be lying if I didn't say there is a HUGE negative stigma out there associated with travel sports and I wasn't sure if we wanted to go down that road just yet.  When you tell people your 7 year old is on the team, you do feel like you have to justify the decision.  Which now that I have typed that out, it makes me sad a little bit.  You do you my friends!!  You know what is best for your kid.  Don't let people make you feel like you should make different choices because they think you should!  When you have prayerfully made a choice that you feel is the way you should go, be confident in that choice! 

What I was sure of was that this was her "dream."  When she walks into the gym, she is a different person.  When she works hard to get a skill, she is over the moon excited.  She practices at home.  She asked for a weight set so she could get stronger.  She loves being there.  She asks if she can go to open gym every single day.  

I know that gymnastics is going to teach her things that I can't.  She is going to learn to concentrate.  She is going to learn to fail.  She is going to learn to take criticism.  She is going to learn to do hard things.  She is going to learn that she will fall down and get back up many, many times.  School is always going to be difficult for her, and I'm praying that the things she learns in the gym translate into the classroom.  These are the reasons we decided to go for it.

Do we think she is going to be an Olympian.  Nope.  Do we think she is going to be a college gymnast.  Nope.  Those things would not be bad, but they are not why we are doing this.

I love that her gym is full of affirmations.  They stress the importance of being a team in an individual world.  They teach them to cheer each other on and to build each other up.  She is learning that friendship is important and she has made some friends that I am sure will be her friends for a long time.  Raising girls in this me, me, me world is hard and I am happy she has a place where they recognize that even in a competitive sport we are still FOR each other!

After spending a summer practicing 8.5 hours a week, what I can tell you is that this little girl has found her "thing" for the time being ,and when it stops being her thing we will move on.  However, I know we will have no regrets with starting her this early.  She absolutely lights up when she is there.

First day of team practice! 

Sweet friends!  I love how they look out for each other!

They got to meet Olympian Samantha Pezek one day at camp!

She looks so old here!  

See this look?  This is the one that says she loves it here!  

I'm looking forward to watching our little Baby Bronze team compete this year! 

Can you find me?

Adventures in Summer Fun

I love lists.

I love checking things off my list.  It is super satisfying. And I'm not ashamed to say I make lists all the time!  Every morning I make a list of what each kid needs to do for that day and they cross it out as it get accomplished.  See...I'm feeding my list maker soul, by creating little list makers...

For the last two summers, I have made a Summer Bucket List.  It is full of all kinds of fun stuff from the easy like play outside or go to the park to the ones that require more effort and planning like go on a hike to a waterfall or go to the beach for the day!  A simple google search will bring up all kinds of summer bucket list ideas!

Bucket lists seem to be a different story for me.  For some reason, my list making skills are regaled to the daily list variety.  If I make a general list that could last a week, a month or  more, it will never get completed and that makes me a little nuts!  That list kind of just stares at me.  Mocking all the "fun" that I had planned.  We do great for about 4 days and then the list gets forgotten and we focus on the daily tasks that keep us alive and somewhere along the way we just never get to all the "fun" things we had planned to do and the summer is over!

So, this summer we are trying something different!  I'm sharing in case you have been looking for something different to do this summer.  I drew out big calendars. Now the kids know what is going on.  I'm telling you, life changes big time once you have readers!!  They each have a color (because, I'm still type A after-all) and if nothing is planned for that day then we plan it that morning and write it in!  So far, so good.

I would say our summer goal is to really be intentional with our days.  I don't think we need to have something big planned.  The other day the boys built a water wall in the back yard that took all day.  Yet, that is something that they had been asking to do and we just kept forgetting about it.  All it took was us heading to the Habitat Re-Store and finding cheap pipes that they could use.  And some days staying home and reading or playing with the neighbors is great too.  But one day we may wake up and say, let's hike to a waterfall!  The point is that these big calendars on the wall is making up come up with a plan for the day and EVERYONE gets to be involved!  I am also much more likely to say yes to painting or doing that big messy science experiment, if we talk about it ahead of time AND if they don't ask me at 5pm at night.  We are also keeping a record of what we do on the big calendar.  That way we not only remember what we have done, but we are able to cross it off that imaginary bucket list!

I'm going to go ahead and go on the record that I am loving these Elementary years.  I think now is when we really start to have fun.  While the youngest is still only 3, he seems to be a much more capable 3 year old then the others were.  It's amazing what having older siblings pushes you to do!  The kids will remember these days.  J will remember when he went paddle boarding on the lake with Mom, and CB will remember that we let her experiment in the kitchen.  They also will remember the beach trip with cousins and our family camp experience at Ridge Haven.  These are the days where memories are made and relationships are formed.

Check our the photo bomber in the back...his name is Moondoggie...I kid you not!

Love her creative spirit.  Her cupcakes, not so much!

So, here is to Summer 2017!  May it be filled with oodles and oodles of chaos...written down and planned out, of course ;)

Adventures in Year 3

We finished out our school year last week with a final week long field trip to the beach!  We love going to the beach and since the oldest just finished Appologia Zoology 2, it seemed a fitting end of the school year!

It's hard to believe that we have been homeschooling for 3 years.  As a brand new teacher 15 years ago, this is not a journey I ever thought we would be taking.  However, the longer we do it, the more I am able to see that this is most certainly the right choice for our family.  My first "homeschooling goal" has always been to get the oldest to 3rd grade and know that if we wanted, we could put him in public school and he would be on the same page as his peers.  I believe that we have accomplished that goal!

We may not be forever homeschoolers, and we plan to take it year by year, semester by semester, day by day, but for right now we embrace the chaos!


Here is a look back at our year!

First day of school!

Manipulatives for the win! 

We enjoyed ALOT of trips to the zoo aka his special place!

We watched the eagle hatching.

We got cats.  Or rather the cats found us...

We studied geography! 

Wild Kratts!!

Doesn't get much cuter!

First Science Fair! 

We participated in the Game School Challenge! 

Great Wolf Lodge!

Sometimes, I can make good on my promises to see cool things :)

Teach your children well,

Their father's hell did slowly go by,

And feed them on your dreams

The one they picks, the one you'll know by.

Don't you ever ask them why, if they told you, you will cry,

So just look at them and sigh

And know they love you.

-Graham Nash

Adventures in Weathering the Storms

Then Jesus said, "Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest." Matthew 11:28.

This is me.  As I reflect on the last days of school, I am reminded of how incredibly insane those days were.  Our last 3 months really.  And if I let myself think on it for long, I am reminded that since Christmas our days have never really slowed down at all, and I am weary.

The storms of life have hit us hard.  The clouds have been dark and came rolling in.  Fast.  The rain has been painful.  Stinging as it touches our skin.

We have dealt with death.  Lots of death.  

We have done a lot of traveling.

A LOT of school on the road.

In the end, we raced to finish our books because we were all just so, so done with doing ALL THE THINGS required of us. 

And yet, He has been carrying us all along.  

When you look in the sand there is only one set of footprints and they are not ours.

Now we rest.  In His arms. 

We will meet him in the morning.

Won't you join us?  We all need rest.  We all need to be carried through life's storms.  

Through life's trials.  

You are not alone.  Ever.  

There is great hope.

"Come to me all who are weary."

A Prayer in the Morning

Thank you God for making me alive.

To beauty, to love, to life,

Thank you, too, for 

making me know

That quietness follows the strife.

Thank you for the constant assurance

That, even as the storm clouds rise,

The world is Yours and each 

sparrow's fall

Is seen by Your watchful eyes.

Teach me, God to

feel Your presence

In everything I see-

In nature, in people

in common events;

and even, at times, in me.

Teach me how to stay alive

'Midst the deadening concerns

 of the day.

Show me how to guard against

Becoming callous along the way

Create in me an eagerness, God.

To live, to love, to care.

Fill my heart so full of love

That I can't keep it there.

Send me forth every day,

Not for some great deed;

But help me see the

greatness that lies

In meeting on an ordinary need.

-Sidney E. Sandridge aka Papa